Westchester County District Attorney Miriam E. Rocah announced on Thursday, June 15, that a Bronx woman was sentenced to 20 years to life in State prison for the 2012 fatal shooting of her 26-year-old girlfriend, Pamela Graddick.

 

Both cases, after lengthy investigations by the Yonkers Police Department and the Westchester County District Attorney’s Office, are the latest homicides charged by the Cold Case Bureau, which the district attorney established upon taking office in 2021.

 

In the context of the announcement of the sentencing, among some other cold case breakthroughs, Rocah said, “Today, we have delivered some measure of closure to the families who have lived with these unsolved cases for a combined 36 years. The sentence and indictment in these two cases show what can be accomplished with the resources and commitment of our dedicated Cold Case Bureau.” She added, “Thanks to the tenacious work by our attorneys, investigators, and our vital police partners, we are securing justice for victims.”

 

For his part, Yonkers Police Commissioner Christopher Sapienza said, “I applaud the extraordinary efforts of our Yonkers Police cold case detectives and the Westchester County District Attorney’s Office Cold Case Bureau in pursuing justice for the Graddick and Ramos families. Words cannot assuage the grief of losing a loved one to violence, so we hope these [efforts] bring some degree of closure to those who knew Pamela and Nusinaida [Ramos].”

 

According to the prosecution, the defendant, Wanda Veguilla, 42, pleaded guilty on April 3, 2023, to murder in the second degree and tampering with physical evidence, for the August 12, 2012 murder of Graddick.

 

According to the investigation, in the days leading up to the murder, Veguilla plotted to kill her girlfriend and purchased a gun from a “Latin King” gang associate in The Bronx, with the help of a person, who later pleaded guilty to conspiracy in the second degree, criminal facilitation in the second degree, hindering the prosecution in the first degree, and tampering with physical evidence, and is awaiting sentencing.

 

According to the prosecution, Veguilla then shot her girlfriend, execution-style, in the back of the head while she was watching television after midnight in their Morris Avenue apartment in The Bronx. [Morris Avenue runs from the Grand Councourse in Claremont south to E 138th Street in Mott Haven.]

 

The prosecution team said Veguilla then, with a second individual, who was later convicted and sentenced for criminal facilitation in the second degree, hindering prosecution in the first degree, and tampering with physical evidence, wrapped the victim’s body in a comforter, placed her in garbage bags and disposed of her body in a wooded area of Rossmore Avenue in Yonkers. They said the victim’s decaying body was found by a passerby on Sept. 4, 2012.

Following the creation of DA Rocah’s Cold Case Bureau in 2021, forensic data experts in the DA’s Office High Technology Crimes Unit examined the victim’s cell phone, and obtained GPS location data that tracked the device to Yonkers, and back to The Bronx on the night of the murder. The cell phone analysis revealed text messages [apparently] between Veguilla and Graddick, following Graddick’s murder, which Veguilla later admitted to sending herself using the victim’s phone.

 

Yonkers police arrested Veguilla on January 23, 2023, at her home in The Bronx, and she confessed to the murder.

 

On a social media page entitled “Justice for Pam,” a user wrote on April 10, 2022, “God bless you Pam. You are loved and missed by so many. My heart took me back today. It was harder to go than yesterday, but I did it. Everyone needs to know your beautiful face and know we will get JUSTICE for you. Justice will not be served until the murderers have been sentenced. But we are several steps closer. I love you with all my heart.“

 

The case was before Judge George Fufidio in Westchester County Court, and was prosecuted by former Cold Case Bureau Chief Laura Murphy. Rocah thanked Trials and Investigations Counsel John O’Rourke, Detective Vionette Martinez and retired Detective John Geiss of the Yonkers Police Department’s Cold Case unit.

Bolstering the efforts of the Cold Case Bureau’s work, DA officials said the DA’s office was selected for the “Department of Justice’s 2022 Bureau of Justice Assistance Grant for Prosecuting Cold Cases Using DNA.” The $500,000 award, funded over the course of three years, supports an additional full-time ADA to prosecute cases where a suspect’s DNA has been identified.

 

Anyone with information pertaining to an open homicide case in Westchester County is encouraged to call the DA’s office 24-hour tip line at (914)995-TIPS. Language assistance is available.